Comparative study on the molecular response mechanisms to mercury stress in different Chlamydomonas strains

Three Chlamydomonas strains (FACHB-2217, FACHB-479, FACHB-889) were exposed to four Hg²⁺ concentrations (0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5 mg/L) for 24 h and 48 h. Physiological parameters including photosynthetic pigment contents (Chl.a, Chl.b, Car), PSII maximum photochemical efficiency (Fv/Fm), soluble protein, malondialdehyde (MDA), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) were measured with three biological replicates per treatment.

Transcriptome sequencing (Illumina NovaSeq XPlus) was performed on samples treated with 0, 0.5, and 1.0 mg/L Hg²⁺ for 24 h, with three biological replicates per treatment (27 samples total).The dataset includes: (1) Physiological data containing all measured parameters for the three strains; (2) Raw transcriptome data have been deposited in the NCBI SRA database under BioProject accession number PRJNA14151295, comprising a total of 27 samples; (3) qRT-PCR validation data showing relative expression levels (2^ΔΔCt) of five selected genes (Cre01.g014150, Cre02.g100000, Cre03.g174050, Cre03.g200050, Cre16.g690319).